MindSpark’20: College of Engineering Pune’s annual, national level technical festival commences its online events!

MindSpark is the annual, national-level technical festival of College of Engineering Pune. Since its inception in 2007, MindSpark has grown to become one of the most coveted technical college festivals in the country. The fest is organised completely by students and comprises of Keynote
Lectures, Technical exhibition, and many technical as well as non- technical events.

The pandemic and the digital revolution across the nation has encouraged the organising committee to conduct this multi-scale physical event as a virtual one. This would be the first time in the 13-year long history of the festival that it will be conducted in an online manner. The theme of the 14 th edition of the festival is ‘MindSpark’20: A Delve Into

Tech-Future’ through this theme, the festival seeks to showcase emerging technological advancements that will bring a positive impact on the society. The festival hopes to provide a platform for the grater public to discover a world of innovation and creative thinking.

On 4th September, the festival conducted its online inauguration through the online conferencing platform. Dr. Soumya Swaminathan, Chief Scientist at the World Health Organization (WHO) and Dr.Tessy Thomas, Director General (Aeronautical Systems) DRDO graced the event as the Guests of Honour accompanied by the Honourable Director of COEP Dr. B. B. Ahuja, Associate Dean Students Affairs Dr. P. R. Dhamangaonkar and the Faculty Advisor of MindSpark’20, Dr. Arati S. Petkar.

As part of its ‘Virtual Phase’ the fest had conducted five of its twenty online events since the 3 rd week of October. The upcoming weekend of 31 st October and 1 st November, the fest has 3 events lined up namely:

1. Retracer: A coding competition that requires one to analyse a given output and develop
   a code that fits a given input pattern.
2. Torquest: This is an Astronomy and Science Quiz which tests one’s conceptual ability as
   well as regular updates in astronomical and scientific discoveries.
3. Code Junkie++: A coding competition designed to test the knowledge and innovativeness of students in object-oriented programming such as C++, Java, and Python programming languages. Participants can choose the language in which they are comfortable and solve
   the given problem statement.

The organisers plan on conducting the fest’s events every weekend, host a Virtual Technical Exhibition and conduct the 5 th edition of its Hackathon in December this year.

Registrations for the upcoming events are open. Students can read through the event structure and register at http://www.mind-spark.org/

The online Inauguration ceremony can be viewed at:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bR4EB3sPTgo